Wing Shooting With a Rifle
The blessed, the brave, the indispensable Red Cross! Just back of the pit, exposed to the vicious German fire and yet intent only upon the duty of mercy, the panting ambulances were being loaded with their precious, their pitiful human freight soon to be billeted in warm, clean, homey hospitals far in the rear where German shells, even from the biggest guns, might seldom reach. And laboriously through the mud the springy cars went away, one at a time.
"Herb, I'd like to have been with ye to help stop those devils, but I couldn't. And if ye can't, how can ye? Now I mebbe never can. It's a fine, good, hard, tryin' old world, it is, Herb. As me old granddad in Ireland used to say: 'Whurrah, me lad, but life's mainly disappointin'.' I know what they'll do to me, me boy. They'll leave me go round as if I was playin' hop scotch as long as I live, but faith, no longer. Me leg'llhave to come off, Herb; I know it will. But what of it? It's all in the game."
"I don't believe it, Roy, old man; I think not," the corporal made answer, sick at heart.
"Come see me at the hospital, Corporal," groaned Smith, rolling his eyes, that told of suffering, toward his chief. "That is, if I'm still sticking round there when you can get relieved. If I'm still above ground I'll look for you."
"Say, Corporal, I want to thank you for being good to me; always jolly and kind, even when I felt like grumbling. Will you do me a big favor? You see I can't write with this arm; never can, I guess. Won't you just drop a line to dad and mother? You have my home address and it would come better from you than anybody else; and you might say that I didn't run and hide when the Boches were coming. I think dad always believed I would do that. Will you?" Such was Geddes' request.
And all Herbert could do was to take their hands and press them, nod rather violently and perhaps get out a very few words like: "Oh, you'll be all right. See you later." Had he attempted more he would have quite broken down; and that, he believed, would not have been exactly the part of a soldier.
They were gone and the boy turned to his chief. "Lieutenant, there's only four of us left out of the nine; one dead, three wounded, one a traitor. This is war! But there's something more to be said; it is, how to get back at those devils down yonder? Of course, we're after them, too, but they had no business to start this war."
"I don't think those poor chaps did start it and I don't believe the most of them would have started it, either, if they'd had any say in the matter. They are mere puppets, even the higher commanders, working in a vile system that makes monkeys of them at the behest of their ambitious and conscienceless rulers, or the one ruler, Kaiser Bill. But as long as these fellows have made their bed as practical slaves, let them lie in it as victims, however the fortunes of war may swing, and we have to teach them a lesson about coming over here too readily; got to get back at them.
"To-morrow the communicating trench between our pit and the lower trench will be completed; that is a less distance across No Man's Land and some of us can join those boys down there in a counter-raid to-morrow night.
"And, Whitcomb, don't be too down-hearted; I see you are. Those fellows will mend up and we must expect some to be killed. We lost seven in all and eleven wounded. What is left of you can do very efficient work yet. The Huns are not done sniping and I will ask for some more men to refill your squad, along with two other squads of our command to take up the losses. And say, my boy, keep your eyes open for enemy airplanes; it'll be good flying weather in the morning and I've a notion they'll try again to do what the raid failed in. But Susan Nipper will wing 'em if she gets a show!"
It turned out precisely as the lieutenant predicted. The morning dawned clear and still, like an Indian summer day in the dear old United States and the men in the pit and those in the trenches below praised heaven for smiling upon them and Old Sol for drying up a bit of the bottom ooze where the trenches were poorly drained. The pit did not suffer so much, being on high and sloping ground where, even had the bottom been level and not drained, the rain water would have soon seeped away.
Herbert and Watson went out on the slope to watch for snipers in the early morning.But no snipers were in evidence and, strangely, they were not shot at even once; at that time this section could truthfully be called quiet. Not so?
Well, considering that one airplane engine makes as much noise and keeps it up longer than the shooting of a machine-gun, and that now no less than three airplanes made their appearance low down and came on at a tremendous rate, the quiet sector suddenly took on a different character. And then Susan Nipper commenced to talk out loud and to do things spitfire fashion.
At the very first shot, timing the shell fuse long or short, the foremost plane was hit precisely in the center; a long range wing shot with a single projectile at that. The German taube went to pieces and to earth as though it had been a dragon-fly smashed with a brick-bat, and there could hardly have been enough of the propeller and engine left to take up with a pitchfork. As for the poor driver and bomber, they passed into the other world without knowing a thing about it.
But this was no check to the other machines, for the quality of mind that makes or permits a man to go aloft at all makes of him no coward under any circumstances. On thetwo came, straight for the side of the hill, at such a furious speed that Corporal Letty had time only for one more shot at them. Hastily timed, this was a clean miss, the shell bursting high in the air beyond. And the gun squad was making a record to get in another shell as the machines, one a little above and behind the other, swept almost over the pit.
Two of the gun squad were working the Colt rapid-fire gun now, but they did not seem to swing it fast enough, all their stream of missiles being wasted.
Watson, farther down the slope than Whitcomb, now held to his shoulder a rifle that was hot with repeated action, and yet he, too, had scored no hits. Though an airplane, if not over three hundred feet in air and flying steadily ought to be scored on, its height makes it look mighty small and hard to hit, and moving objects are no cinches for a single bullet. As the disappointed fellow stopped to slip in still another cartridge clip he heard a yell from Herbert.
"Lookout, Watson! Dodge!"
Watson did dodge just in time. He saw a conical-shaped thing descending toward him and, a baseball player of skill with an eye for sky-scraper flies, he gauged correctly where that thing was going to hit and he got away from that place. And when the thing did hit and tore up the earth and gravel and stones Watson was glad he had dodged.
He Fired Twice in Quick Succession.
Another was flung down at him, but it went wide, and a third was started toward Herbert, who stood, spread-legged, gun to shoulder.
There is an art in aiming at a moving object that probably estimates its speed and direction, the speed of the bullet and allows for all of this. Herbert's skill with his little .22-caliber at objects tossed in air stood him in good stead when at rifle practice in the training camp and, however excited and eager with the necessity of shooting straight, it did not fail him now.
He fired twice in quick succession, meaning to hit exactly under the fish-like belly of the machines, directly below where he knew the driver sat and the first shot he believed he had missed. He felt pretty sure of the other; he even thought he saw the direct result of it in a glare of light, a shower of jumbled sparks and stars, and then, there was sudden blackness.
"What in thunder—how'd I get here?"was the corporal's question of Lieutenant Jackson, who stood over his cot, smiling a little. But that was not an important matter just then; there were big comments being saved for Herbert's return of wits.
"Great Jupiter, my boy! By jingo! I never saw shooting like that! None of us ever did! The next minute they would have played havoc with things in here. Letty couldn't get at them and Watson couldn't and not one of my men, butyou—oh,youcould beat Doc. Carver! Wonderful!"
"Say, if you'd make it a little clearer to me I'd know what you're referring to," Herb protested. "Let's see; it was—oh, yes; I think I remember: taubes, weren't they? Where'd they get to?"
"They got to earth, you bet! Can't you recollect? You must have been worse stunned than I thought. You got 'em both, boy; got 'em both. Hit the first one so that it went down into the hill above and your second bullet started something going in the hind machine and it blew up and tossed those two fellows out and it turned turtle. She lies out there, looking more like a dump heap at home than anything else. You were hit by a fragment. You're a dandy!"
"You are that!" echoed Letty, from the opening. "I'll bet those Boches down there will study awhile before they send on any more fliers here! Feel better, Whitcomb?"
"Pretty much. Head aches. Any bones busted? Guess not. Sore in spots, though. Well, getting out in the air and sunshine would feel better. Want to see what happened," said Herbert, rising from his cot.
"Wonderful! Wonderful shooting!" repeated the lieutenant.
"Yes, and four Boches the less!" declared Letty.
"Is it true? Poor fellows!" said Herbert.
"Poor nothing! They'd have got my gun if you——"
"Hadn't murdered them, poor chaps!" put in Herbert. "This business of killing makes me sick. But I must get out; they'll be sending others to drop some more bombs."
"You're a queer chap," said Corporal Letty, and Lieutenant Jackson once more reiterated: "Wonderful shooting! Wonderful!"
But the Germans sent no more airplanes over on that day, nor many a day thereafter; they are brave, but rarely foolhardy. And as they appeared to have lapsed into inactivity for a time, probably seeking somesurprises to spring, it seemed up to the Americans, true to their reputation for originality, to do some more surprising themselves.
The day wore on uneventfully. Watson and Herbert were replaced on the slope of No Man's Land by Gardner and Rankin, and the latter once so far forgot himself as to walk uprightly for about ten yards. Whereupon half a dozen whiz-bangs, or very light shells, from a small rapid-firer, came his way. Letty saw whence they came, trained Susan on that whiz-bang slinger and it went out of commission, along with three men working it. Rankin, meanwhile, had hunted cover.
Reinforcements arrived, as asked for. They were Regulars and more than anxious to get into the fighting, the actual work of getting into touch with the enemy. And, expert with revolvers, they were chosen for the night's work.
Herbert went to the lieutenant. "We fellows all want to get into this thing. We know something about work with pistols; perhaps we are as handy with them as with rifles. It's a cinch that we can do some good."
Lieutenant Jackson hesitated. "If we lose any more of you boys, and you in particular,Whitcomb, we won't be as sure of holding off attempts to get at Susan Nipper. But, nevertheless, this once, as it is to be an effort to demonstrate pistol work almost exclusively, I expect you fellows ought to be included. Sergeant West is to command; Corporal Gerry will lead. There will be about forty men and they will start from the lower communicating trench at about three o'clock to-night. Each man will carry two revolvers only, and six more rounds of ammunition and go as light as possible. There will be no barrage, as we want to surprise them. So be ready."
"Over the Top"
Had the entire bunch of fellows, from Regulars to Draftees been planning for a football game or a very strenuous social lark of some kind, they could not have appeared more happy, in the beginning, over it. The fact that the raiders had first in mind the killing of the enemy, men like themselves sent to cut down their opponents, proved what custom will do. For custom is everything, and men in a body can fit themselves to observe almost any procedure and to twist it whichever way that gives the greatest satisfaction.
In times of peace we regard the murder of one person as something over which to get up a vast deal of excitement and much indignation, but in warfare we plan for the killing of thousands as a business matter and read of it often with actual elation. Such are the inconsistencies of mankind.
"Say, Corporal, if I don't get at least a half dozen of those Huns during this littlepicnic you can call me a clam! These little get-theres have got to do the job!" Rankin stood gazing lovingly at his two service pistols, held in either hand, as he spoke. He was admittedly the best revolver shot amongst the gun-pit contingent.
"I'll run you a little race as to who makes the best score on real deaders!" spoke up a youthful-looking fellow who was one of the recently arrived squad of Regulars. "I sort of like to punch holes with these small cannons myself."
But Herbert heard no other boasts of the sort from the men contemplating the night raid; indeed, there was very little talk about it at all, except that some were curious as to how the program might work out, or what the hitches might be, and some, though determined to do their duty, seemed to be a bit nervous as time went on.
The boy, having now gone through enough in the crucible of death-dealing to sear him against the fear of possibilities, even of probabilities, regarded this raid only as a matter of duty, of necessity, and with very little thought about it, resolved to do his part to the very best of his ability.
"Over the top!" This has become afamiliar phrase now since a large part of the present method of warfare consists in those in the opposing trenches finding a way of getting at each other over No Man's Land, often not more than twenty yards across and on an average perhaps a hundred and fifty feet, though the turns and twists of the trenches make it difficult to draw an average.
Open attacks, except by large bodies of men in what is termed a drive, are not generally successful in the military, the strategic, sense, for there are more men lost in getting across barbed wire entanglements, machine-gun and rifle fire than will pay for what they gain. A section of trench which is part of the enemy's system will very likely have to be given up, unless the entire trench is soon after taken, which may result in a general drive.
The military tactics compel that which the scientific boxer adopts and calls his art, that of self-defense. Anyone can wade in and hammer a foe if he does not care how he is hammered in turn, but often the hammering he gets is more than he can give, unless he studies to shun injury. In this case often the weaker fighter will outdo the stronger if the former avoids being punished while gettingin some hard cracks on the other chap's weak spots.
And just so with trench fighting. The opposing armies are precisely like two trained-to-the-minute prize fighters with bare knuckles and out for blood; they are watching each other's every move, dodging, ducking and delivering all sorts of straights, hooks, swings and upper-cuts, all sorts of raids, bombings, grenadings, shellings, air attacks and what not?
But the raids at night are the best card that, so far, the opposing platoons or companies have learned to deliver, and they often result in a knockout blow, at least to that section of the trench attacked. The raid must be delivered as a surprise to be most effective and thus may be compared to the fist fighter's sudden uppercut or swing to the jaw.
The night came on cold, still, with gathering clouds, and the men in the lower portion of the communicating trench, and mostly within an offset that had also been dug and roofed over with heavy poles, brush and sod for camouflage, gathered to partake of the evening meal and converse in low tones.
Two enemy airplanes bent on scoutingduty, started just before dusk toward the American lines, but with glee the boys heard Susan Nipper begin to talk again and the planes disappeared, one veering off out of range, the other being knocked into the customary mass upon the unkind ground.
Whitcomb, Gardner, Watson, and Rankin chummed together, as was their habit when all off duty together; not at this time cooking, as there was no place handy where a fire could be camouflaged. The men now all ate their grub cold, which was not so bad for an occasional change; the tinned meats, fresh fruit and fresh biscuits made at the barracks well satisfying a soldier's appetite.
Hot coffee in a big urn was sent down from the gun pit, and the lieutenant added a good supply of chocolate candy recently shipped over from the good old United States for the boys in the trenches and appreciated as much as anything could be. After this many indulged in pipes and tobacco, but they were careful to keep the glow of their smoke well out of sight of the prying eyes of the enemy, for who can tell when a squirming Hun may wriggle himself up to almost the very edge of his foeman's trench and spot those gathered within, or overhear their plans!
"Maybe I'll Hear Them Pronounce My Doom."
All this while there had been someone at the listening post, that point of the zigzag trench which was nearest the enemy. The job is an exacting one and the listeners are frequently relieved by those men most alive to the interests of the trench.
Presently Sergeant West came to the snipers and addressed Whitcomb:
"Corporal, you fellows are all wide awake and with your eyes sharpened. I'd like to have one of your men on relief at the listening point."
"All right. Rankin has got ears like a rabbit for hearing, even if he is a pretty boy. Go to it, old man!"
Rankin got up and stretched himself. He seemed more than usually serious.
"Maybe I'll hear them pronounce my doom," he remarked and turned away.
"He seems extra solemn tonight," said Gardner. "Wonder if we'll all come out of this business skin whole."
"All? I'll wager not all of us will. Those Huns can fight; I'll say that for them. But it's the only good thing I can say for them," Watson commented.
"That's where you're wrong, old man," Gardner replied. "As you know, I spent a year in Germany——"
"Or in jail? 'Bout as leave!" Watson jested.
"—— after I left school. Dad sent me over with our buyer to get on to the toy importing business, and I'll say this for the doggone Germans. They are rough, they are brags, they are all a little crazy; but they are wonderfully painstaking, remarkably thorough and persevering, and here and there, now and then you come across some mighty fine, good, upright, altogether decent chaps whom you may be glad and proud to have as friends. It is all wrong, unfair and a little small to consider all the people in any land unworthy; don't you think so? You remember what Professor Lamb used to say at school——"
"Professor Lamb?" interrupted Herbert. "Say, man, what school did you attend?"
"Brighton Academy. Best school in the——"
"Here, too! I was a junior when I enlisted; Flynn and I. Put it there, old chap!" Herbert thrust out his hand.
"Now, isn't that funny we didn't know that before about you?" Gardner said. "Yes, Watson here and I were classmates. We were chums at school, and have been chums ever since; enlisted together."
"And we're mighty glad to be under one who has the same Alma Mater," put in Watson.
"Or, as poor old Roy Flynn would say: 'We're all the same litter and bark just alike; mostly at the moon'," Herbert quoted.
"Flynn, too, eh?" questioned Gardner. "He, like many another fitted for some very different task, came out here to be unfitted. I have thought, ever since the days in camp back home, that he was admirably cut out for the law."
"A man doesn't need both feet to talk with," Watson suggested.
"And he may not lose his leg at all," Herbert protested, hoping against hope.
"It won't still his tongue, I'll wager, if he does."
As the night wore on conversation grew less and many of the men dozed, sitting on the ground and propped against the dirt wall, or each other. One little fellow slept and even snored lying across the stretched legs of two others, until they tumbled off to rest their limbs. Others knew only wakefulness and either stood about or paced up and down between the narrow walls of the trench, stopping now and then to exchange a whispered word with their fellows.
The sniper squad took turns in making pillows of each other. Once, when they were shifting positions for comfort, Watson remarked rather sharply:
"We can't yell 'Hurrah for old Brighton!' but we can all pull together, by gum!"
Rankin, who had been in turn relieved from duty at the listening post and who was very wide awake, remarked:
"Mebbe we'll all pull together for the other shore before this night's over."
Herbert waked up at that. "Pull yourself together, old man. You were telling a while ago what you're hoping to do with those guns of yours and——"
"If I have any sort of a chance," Rankin said grimly.
"We can't call you fellows together with a bugle," Sergeant West announced, in a stage whisper. "But it's a few minutes of three o'clock; everything is as quiet as a mouse. Two of our men are over there to give an alarm. All get ready. There'll be no falling in, no formation. Keep well spread out. Orders will be given only by signals. Three of us have whistles and we hope they won't get all three. One short blow means followthe leader; two means all return; three means retreat in a hurry, but with prisoners, if you can get them; a long-continued blast means retreat for your lives. I guess all understand. But no signals will be given until after we attack. We must go across absolutely without noise and we must go quickly. Get the fellow at their listening post, or any sentinel first. It's our first raid in this sector and they will hardly expect us. Now, boys, follow Gerry. He knows the lay of the land."
And over the top went the forty odd, wishing they could do so with a cheer, but keeping as silent as an army of cats after an army of rabbits—only the prey they sought was by no means as harmless as rabbits, and this fact made the need of silence greater.
Not a word came from the scouts, and if the men in the enemy's trench were apprised of the coming of the Americans they were not able to communicate with their fellows before the raiders had scrambled through, or rapidly pulled aside the barbed wire, squirmed over a pile of sand bags and leaped into the German trench.
Not a man hesitated, and the first signal of any kind they heard was the bark of Gerry's revolver as he sent down the foremost andlone Hun he encountered just as the fellow tried to raise his gun.
At short range the handier, expertly used revolver won and it was so throughout the mêlée that followed.
As the Americans landed, some few dashing on and into a wide shelter or dugout lined with berths and concrete-floored, in which fifty men reposed or waited for night duty, the short, sharp, rapidly repeated bark of the ready pistols sounded almost like, though less regular than, a machine gun.
But the revolvers were used only against those that opposed them; the foeman who indicated surrender, who was without a weapon or who dropped it, or who held up his hands was fully disarmed and pushed aside between guards, quickly signified by Sergeant West.
It was not all surrender, however; at the very rear of the dugout a dozen men quickly leveled their Mausers and discharged a volley, point-blank, at the Americans who had entered, the most of them being still in the trench fighting the Huns who had rallied from either end.
The snipers' squad, all light and active young fellows, had been the first into thetrench; the first into the dugout, they were in the fore when the volley came. Herbert, a gun in both hands, leaped to prevent two Germans from seizing their guns; Gardner on the other side held up three men; Watson blazed away at a commander who blazed away at him, without making a hit, and half a dozen Regulars behind were coming on to perform a like duty. But it was Rankin who saw more of the resisting squad at the far end of the dugout.
The young man, a gun in each hand, became transformed instantly into a sort of fire-spouting mechanism; the red streaks of flame from his weapons stabbed the semi-darkness almost with one continuous glare and when the twelve shots were expended every man of the opposing force had fallen. But not alone! The last to stand before that burst of fury aimed true; and as more Regulars rushed into the place to make good the surrender of the other Huns some stumbled over brave Rankin's body.
The whistle sounded once, twice, thrice. Was the work so soon completed? That meant hurry, but with prisoners and, of course, the American wounded and dead.
As though long drilled for this work,knowing precisely what to do and being not once confused, the boys hustled the Huns before them, some guarding against any possible flank attack; and Herbert, feeling for the moment like a young Hercules, lifted Rankin over his shoulder and, climbing again the ramparts of the enemy's trench, staggered rapidly back again over No Man's Land, keeping up with his comrades. And a little behind him came other stalwart fellows, carrying also their precious human burdens, some groaning, some quiet, two limp and fast growing cold.
Then came rest, though there was readiness against counter-attack, which did not then occur. With the coming of dawn a few new men guarded the communicating trench and the raiders returned to the gun pit. Herbert listened to Sergeant West's terse report to Lieutenant Jackson:
"Very successful, sir. Captured twenty and left about thirty-five enemy dead and wounded. Two of ours dead; four wounded. Got a lot of their guns and smashed a machine-gun they were trying to use in the trench."
Then he added in an altered voice:
"Want to recommend every man for bravery, but especially Corporal Whitcomb,Privates Gardner and Watson for holding the dugout against odds until more men arrived, and Corporal Long and Privates Finletter, Beach, Thompson and Michener for capturing the machine-gun. If I may mention it, we would all be glad to make another raid at any time."
Herbert saluted. "May I add to that, Lieutenant? Thank you! I want to tell you what Rankin did before he died." And with a voice a little unsteady at times the boy related briefly the heroic work of the young fellow who had shot faster and truer than eight or nine men against him and had made it possible for the few Americans in the dugout to take the prisoners they did.
"I think this, more than anything that has occurred yet, shows clearly the superiority of the Americans' expertness with the revolver and what may be done with it against odds, if men are taught to shoot accurately and with great rapidity," he added.
"I am going to report that to our captain," said Lieutenant Jackson, "and I hope it goes to Washington. I know what I'd do if I had the say. I'd give each man two pistols and a lot of training and omit a lot of this liquid-fire business and grenades. A poor shot cando nothing, nor can a man attempt it who is unfamiliar with the weapon, but an expert could stop half a dozen men with bayonets before the latter could get near enough to use them."
Herbert's Little Scheme
"Keep an eye open for anything the enemy may spring on us," cautioned Lieutenant Jackson, at the daily conference of the officers under him, their men now occupying the gun pit and the trench near, which had been enlarged from a communicating trench. In all there were now a platoon and three squads of new men. "They have all sorts of schemes. We must have only the sharpest-witted fellows at the two listening posts," continued the commander.
"For this duty I would like to pick Corporals Whitcomb and Kelsey and Privates Marsh, Ferry, Drake and Horn, with two others that may be selected later. Experience and practice will do the best work in this duty and it will be well for you men to arrange regular watches, as they do on shipboard. Whitcomb, I know you are thinking of sniping duty, but send your two men out on that, alternately, and you will have some time forit also. Yes, go ahead, Corporal. Got another idea?"
"I was just thinking this might work, Lieutenant," offered Herbert. And briefly he outlined a scheme that made the rest of those present open wide their eyes. It was a little bit of strategy that was worth trying.
"Fine, fine!" declared the lieutenant. "They'll be most apt to attack the trench and you can work it best there. Get ready for tonight; it'll be as dark as pitch. Sergeant"—to West—"you are in command in the trench, but in this case give the matter over to Whitcomb and the two of you can put it through according to his plan. We shall look after the gun up here with half our men and I'll ask Lieutenant Searles, beyond, to back you up on that side. So, go to it, men!"
The carrying out of a strategic move in the army is nothing like that in any other organization; the action is settled by one or two heads, planned in detail by whoever is put in command, and the rest merely follow orders. West, Whitcomb and Townsend went at the matter with all the energy they could show and the help of some others who were handy.
Just before dark a German airplane, reconnoitering high in air, and purposely let alone by Susan Nipper, discovered a long section of the trench very poorly guarded and manned. This ruse, if not found out as such, is an instant temptation to a raiding party, and the Germans are never slow to seize an advantage.
Massed and ready at one end of the trench near the gun pit, West's and Whitcomb's men were waiting patiently, and in the dugout were more than a dozen stuffed figures posed as though sleeping, a few others propped standing in the trench. A small number of bombs were set to go off with the pull of a string.
The Germans came across silently, a hundred strong, prepared to inflict all the damage they could and to capture prisoners; especially to capture prisoners, for there were promotion and the Iron Cross ahead for those who could bring in Americans.
Hidden in a shell hole, almost in the middle of No Man's Land, his head covered with bunches of grass, and thus successfully camouflaged, a volunteer spy from out of the ranks heard and saw the Germans dash across and into the American trench and heat once gave the signal to the waiting fifty. Without a second's hesitation they went over the top and dashed toward the enemy's trench section, to which the spy led them, he having been able to tell from what direction they had come.
Herbert led the men and without much trouble they found the breach in the wire through which the raiders had come. Swiftly the Yanks ran forward, leaped over the sand bags down into the trench, and an astonished German on duty there got tumbled over so quickly that he knew not what hit him.
Corporal Whitcomb instantly comprehended the exact situation and to further carry out his plan acted accordingly. To the left a right-angled bend led to a communicating trench that could be held by half a dozen men; a little to the right of this another cut led to an elaborate shelter, a guard to which had been standing in the entrance-way. To a dozen men Herbert ordered:
"In there, quick, and hold them up till you hear the signals, and don't come out until then!"
The guard had alarmed those in the dugout, who were the remaining men of the trenchcontingent off duty and sleeping, and the Americans had a lively time of it, but of that nothing was known until later.
"Here at the bend line your men up!" Herbert said to Sergeant West, "and fire when I signal! Carey and I will watch them."
Finding nothing but stuffed figures, the German officer must have suspected a trap in the American trench and he signaled his men to return quickly. This they did, retreating across No Man's Land exactly as they had come. Hidden behind sand bags a little to one side of the wire breach, Herbert saw them come and he waited until twenty-five, or more, in a bunch had leaped into the trench.
At Herbert's signal a volley rang out at the trench bend, followed by groans and curses from the Germans. By this time others, thinking only of getting back into shelter, and not comprehending that their enemies were within the German trench, leaped in also and met much the same fate.
Those not yet in the trench began a retreat along the inner line of wire entanglement and over the sand bags away from the shooting and going into the trench at a point fartheralong. Here they must have encountered more of their fellows and at once formed a plan of reprisal. Anticipating this and also an attack from the other side over the more easily sloping rear of the trench, Herbert leaped back, gave the signal as agreed upon for the retreat with prisoners, and the men got busy. There were a dozen or more of the enemy unhurt in the trench.
Meanwhile, the Germans in the dugout had put up a fight, and had thrown some hand grenades at the entrance among the Americans, with the result that some of the attacking party of a dozen must have been put out of the business of active participation. The others had begun to shoot, rather at random, but largely accounting for those who had attempted to resist; and then, as the Americans were about to round up their prisoners, some brave, foolhardy or fanatic German managed to set off a box of bombs or grenades, enough explosives to upset an average house.
But one man, Private Seeley, came out of that volcano able to tell what happened; two rushed out into the trench to fall on their faces, blinded and dying. Within was a holocaust of flame, smoke and poisonousgases presiding over the dead and dying, Americans and Germans alike.
Sergeant West and Corporal Whitcomb reached the crumbling entrance and tried to gaze within.
"We must get our boys out!" began Herbert.
"Impossible!" protested West.
"Let's try! There may be some alive——"
"Not one! Let's get out of this!"
"You detail squads at the ends of the trench to fight to the last man and give me a rescuing party——"
"No use, Corporal. You can see that. We shall be outnumbered and hemmed in soon. We've got to go!"
"Gardner and Watson are in there!"
"Dead as mackerels! They'll stay there forever. Come, now; we must go back!" With that Sergeant West blew the signal again, and the men, with no wounded, but rushing a number of prisoners, turned once more to retreat.
And then the thing happened which Herbert had expected, in part, and had planned to circumvent: a rally of reprisal had been started. But not being sure of their ground, the Huns had meant, in turn, to cut off the Americans by another detour.
Carey had been left on guard outside of the wire. Paying little attention to what might be going on in the trench, he had followed the German survivors and he had seen and heard them return to No Man's Land and reach a place of ambuscade. This was along the line of some tall Lombardy poplar trees, that had probably once been a farm lane, and the spot was easily noted. Directly past it the Yanks must go to regain their trench.
Carey's speedy progress toward his comrades was hardly marked by caution. His information was received by West and Whitcomb with as much elation as they could show in the face of the loss of their companions in the dugout. This was no time for sentiment; only for action.
"Follow me, men; double file as much as you can and pussy-foot it for keeps!" Herbert ordered, caring no more for technical terms than do many other officers when bent upon such urgent duty.
West ordered three men to conduct the prisoners straight across to the gun pit. Carey indicated the line of trees. Herbert led his men to a point fifty yards behind the trees; then he went to West.
"You order the charge, will you? Youinspire the men more than I. I will give you the signal again, this time the soft whistle of a migrating bird."
The Germans heard a low, plaintive call come from somewhere near; some might have suspicioned it; others hardly noticed it. But almost immediately afterward it was followed by such a yell that the enemy must have believed Satan and all his imps were on the job. Perhaps they were.
What followed was another mêlée; the Huns, being unable to swing their several machine-guns around, turned with rifles, bayonets and grenades to find their foes upon them, the revolvers of the Americans spitting fire quite as usual. The Huns were being mowed down most disastrously and in less than half a minute they were separated, beaten back, thrown into confusion, overpowered in numbers, disarmed and completely at the mercy of their superior and more dashing adversaries. Again the ready and effective revolvers had won.
"Back to our trench! March! Double quick!" shouted Sergeant West.
"A success, men; a success! I cannot give this too high praise in my report. It isworthy of being imitated. The men in the dugout were unfortunate; you couldn't help that. It is terribly hard to foresee anything, and no one would have been to blame if the whole scheme had failed. You only did your duty magnificently! And, Whitcomb, the credit for the idea belongs to you. We will have to term you our Lord High Executioner."
"Please don't, sir!" the boy protested. "We may have to do this sort of thing in the business of fighting, but I wouldn't care to have it rubbed in."
The lieutenant laughed. "Well, at any rate, your scheme, though it practically wiped out your squad, and you are the only one left, must have accounted for at least ninety of the Huns, in dead and wounded, and you took fifty prisoners. Not bad out of perhaps two hundred men in that section of their trench!"
The Big Push
Susan Nipper was talking very loud, very fast, and she had need. The Germans had started something toward the American lines and gun pits—a cloud of something bluish, greenish, whitish and altogether very ominous. It was a gas attack.
On the other side of the hill Susan's sister, and still farther beyond another one of the same capable family, were also talking loud and fast and very much to the purpose, so that wherever their well-timed shells reached the gas-emitting guns and machinery the terrible clouds, after a moment, ceased to flow out and the atmosphere and the sloping ground became clearer and clearer.
Then, all that the American boys had to do was to put on their gas masks for several hours and burn anti-gas fumes, the Boches having been put to a lot of trouble and much expense for very little gain; one or two careless fellows were for a time overcome. After that there was a wholesome contemptfor the gas on the part of the boys from over the ocean.
But Susan kept right on speaking her mind. As the gas men retreated from the field in a terrible hurry they got all that was coming to them and many had come on that did not go off at all, unless upon litters.
Then, Susan paid her respects to aircraft of several kinds that had come over, not on scouting duty, but to drop their bombs here and there. There was a regular fleet of aircraft planes, or it might seem better to call a bunch of them a flotilla, or perhaps a flytilla. Anyway, they made an impressive sight, though not all coming near enough for Susan to reach.
Most of the enemy airplanes went on, despite the guns aimed at them from the earth, until, sighting a number of French machines coming out to do battle, they strategically fell back over the German lines, thus to gain an advantage if they or their enemies were forced to come to the ground.
The Americans had not before witnessed such a battle in the air as that. The birdmen turned, twisted, dived, mounted, maneuvered to gain advantage, French and German being much mixed up and now and then spittingred tongues of flame, singly or in rapid succession, at each other.
Two machines were injured and came to earth, one German, that descended slowly; the other French, that tumbled over and over, straight down. Then two other German planes were forced to descend, and, finally, others coming from far behind the lines, the French retreated, being much outnumbered; they had to be outnumbered to retreat from the hated Boches. And the Boches did not follow them up.
This had all happened soon after daylight, the different incidents following each other rapidly. It was hardly eight o'clock when Susan Nipper let fly her last shell at the airplane. Before noon a messenger arrived at the pit, and Corporal Whitcomb was sent for.
"My boy, they must be aware of you back there at headquarters. You know you have been mentioned in dispatches a number of times as resourceful, altogether fearless, capable in leadership and——"
"I don't know how to thank you sufficiently—" Herbert began, but the lieutenant shut him off.
"Don't try it, then! Merely justice, fair dealing, appreciation, recognition of worth.We aim toward that in the army; military standards, you know. Well, as I was going to say, there is a general advance ordered, in conjunction with our Allies. We want to push the Huns out of their trenches and make them dig in farther on, somewhere. If the attempt is successful, the engineers will place Susan in a new pit somewhere ahead. But the main thing you want to know is what your duty will be."
The lieutenant settled back with a half smile; half an expression of deep concern.
"They expect us fighting men in the army, and in the navy, too, I suppose, to have or to show not one whit of sentiment. We are expected to be no more subject to such things than the cog-wheels of a machine. But they can no more teach us that than they can teach us not to be hungry, or to want sleep. I have begun to think, of late, that they don't expect us to sleep, either.
"Well, my boy, if you would like to see an example of military brevity I will show it to you. Ahem! Corporal, report to-night to regimental headquarters, with your company; Captain Leighton, Advanced Barracks. By order of Colonel Walling.
"But hold on! Here's a little of theabsence of military brevity. It appears that they so admire your record back there at headquarters that they have picked you out for almost—no doubt you think me pessimistic, or a calamity howler—for almost certain injury or death. My boy, I wanted you to stay here with me until we are relieved, which will be soon, but now they are going to take you away from me. An old man like me—I am getting on toward fifty—gets to have a lot of feeling in such matters. He likes to think of his military family, of his boys, and becomes more than usually attached to some of them. But let that pass.
"They're going, I am told, to put you on special scouting duty before the drive. Of course, you'll go and glory in it, but, my boy—Well, good luck to you; good luck! If you get out all right, look me up when we are all relieved. Look us all up; the men will all wish it."
Herbert's leave taking of the pit platoon and the squads in the adjoining trench, that night, was one that was more fitting for a lot of school cronies than hardened soldiers bent upon the business of killing. But human nature is human all the world over and under pretty much all conditions.
That night, in the half light of a moon darkened by thick clouds, and in a cold, steady rain, Corporal Whitcomb journeyed with a patrol and on an empty ammunition lorry back again toward the rear, though not far. After bunking in the one empty cot in the barracks of a former National Guard battalion and messing with same, he reported to Captain Leighton, of his own company. He was received with a more than cordial handshake.
"It's a pleasure to see you again, Whitcomb, especially after what we have heard concerning you. And you are the last man of your squad; the one survivor! Well, I learn that was not because you tried to save your skin. We have lost a good many men; sniping is one of the very hazardous things. The plan now is to form new squads as fast as we can get the men in from the trenches and they will be assigned to new points, mostly. You will be given eight other men, but we want you for special duty. The British have sent us a tank; one of these new-fangled forts on wheels, or belts, or whatever they call them, and it is to blaze a certain trail, to be followed by an armored motor car in which your squad will travel right into the enemy's lines. Thecar has trench bridges to lay down anywhere. Reaching an advanced spot, hereafter to be indicated and where a mine is to be laid, you will guard this from attack until a counter-drive; then fall back and set the mine off at a signal."
"Are we to carry any other weapons but——"
"Only your rifles and pistols, and, of course, gas masks. No packs. There will be tools to dig you in and the car will carry all supplies. Perhaps the spot will not be attacked at all; perhaps it will be overwhelmed at once. In the latter case you are to use your own judgment about the setting off of the mine. You want to hold the enemy back until a large number attack you."
The general drive was ordered. The Allied armies were to attack almost simultaneously and over the frozen ground of winter, rain or shine, snow or blow. The firing of big guns and smaller guns from the Cambrai sector to the Aisne indicated to friend and foe alike what must be the plan. After some hours of this, when half of those in the German trenches had been made nearly crazy by the incessant hammering and many had been killed, the great push was on.
But the Germans were wise to the purpose. There had been other mighty drives launched against them, some to force them back a few miles and to win their first, second and even third line trenches; some to win nothing at all; some to be pushed back a little here and there, in turn, showing what a deadlock it is for armies of great nations to battle with those of others long and splendidly prepared.
But this was a new thing in drives; it was fully simultaneous; it was launched in the early part of winter when the ground was frozen hard to a depth of several inches, to be broken up by the tramp of men over certain spots, the dragging of heavy ordnance, the armored cars, tanks and motor trucks, until in spots there was a sea of mud, holding back the advance to some extent, but still bravely overcome by pluck and persistence.
And there were several new schemes launched, largely the result of American strategy and suggestion.
Herbert knew all of the men in his new squad; they had all qualified as snipers at Camp Wheeler and otherwise he approved of them. A bunch of athletic chaps, skilled with rifles and revolvers and having already known the baptism of fire, were to be relied on in any emergency.
Not one of them ever forgot that motor-truck ride. They forged along over rough and rocky ground, through muddy and oozy ground, even through bits of swamp and, following the great, lumbering tank a hundred yards ahead, they plowed through once prosperous farmyards, along the street of a ruined and deserted village, seeing only a cat scamper into a lone cellar, through orchards, that had once blossomed and fruited, but with every tree now cut down by the dastardly Boches.
Finally, still following the iron monster that was now spitting flame, they crossed the empty trenches of their Allies, putting into use the grooved bridge planking on which their wheels ran as over a track, and then came to the first line trenches of the enemy. Whereupon things began to get interesting.
On either side was orderly pandemonium; a concentrated Hades with motive, its machinery of death carried out with precision, method, exactness of detail, except where some equally methodical work of the enemy overthrew the plans for a time.
Long lines of infantry in open formation were running forward, pitching headlong to lie flat and fire, then up again and breakinginto trenches, shooting, stabbing with bayonets, throwing grenades and after being half lost to sight in the depths of the earth for a time, emerging again beyond, perhaps fewer in numbers, but still sweeping on.
Here and there were machine-gun squads struggling along to place their deadly weapons and then raking the retreating or the standing enemy with thousands of deadly missiles, sometimes themselves becoming the victims of a like annihilating effort or the bursting of a well-directed enemy shell.
Herbert rode with the driver; and before them and all around them the heavy sheet-iron sides and top of the armored truck protected them from small gun fire.
It was a risky thing to peep out of the gun holes in the armor to witness the battle, but this most of the boys did, the driver by the necessity of picking his way, and Herbert's eyes were at the four-inch aperture constantly.
Just behind him Private Joe Neely knelt at a side porthole, and next to him came young Pyle and Bill Neely, brother of the before-mentioned Joe. Cartright, Appenzeller, and Wood occupied the other side, back of the driver. Finley and Siebold lay on the straw in the center and hugged the water keg andthe boxes of explosives and food to keep them from dancing around at too lively a rate on their comrades' feet.
The going was as rough as anything that a motor truck had probably ever tackled, especially a weighty vehicle of this kind. It was well that the car had an engine of great power, an unbreakable transmission and a driver that knew his business.
On swept the great push, seemingly as irresistible, for a time, as the waves of the ocean, but presently to cease on the shore of human endurance; and the battle, so called, came to an end almost as quickly as it had begun five hours before.
Over the ground won the Americans and the Allies generally were digging in anew, or utilizing and refortifying the conquered German trenches. Once again were the great armies to face each other across a new No Man's Land the old area having been reclaimed.
But the active fight was not over, for then came the enemy's counter-thrusts here and there, which, as important as winning the battle proper, must be checked by every means possible. It was the plan of the American commander and his staff to teach the Boches a lesson in more ways than one.
Along the British sector the tanks, as formerly, had done wonderful work; the one tank with the American troops had also fulfilled its mission. It had ridden, roughshod, over every obstacle, crushing down barbed wire entanglements, pushing its way across trenches, its many guns dealing death to the foe on every side. In its wake and not far behind it the armored truck had followed faithfully the trail thus blazed by the tank.
At one spot, in line with a bend of the first line trench, a Hun machine-gun had let go first at the tank and then at the truck, doing no damage to the former. The boys in the latter hardly knew at first what to make of the direct hitting and glancing bullets that pattered on the iron sides, but they took quick notice of one that came through a port-hole and rebounded from the inside. It caused some commotion.
"Hey there, you chump! You don't need to dodge now; it's done for!" shouted Appenzeller, addressing young Pyle.
"Sho! Ye might think it was a hoop snake come in here 'stead o' nothin' but a old piece o' lead," remarked Cartright, and there was a general laugh.
"What's the matter with Joe? Here, man,do you feel sick? Say, Corporal, reckon he's got it!" called Finley, with one hand trying to hold Neely from falling backward, the fellow also trying to hold himself up.
Herbert swung round; Bill Neely was beside his brother and talking to him:
"Say, Joe, are you hurt? How, Joe? When? Just now? Blast them devils! Mebbe you ain't bad, Joe; you only think so. Lots do."
"Stop the car, driver! Here's where we leave the track of the tank, anyway, I take it," ordered Herbert, getting down to business. "Where are you hurt, Neely?"
For answer the poor fellow placed his hand on his back; then suddenly fell limp in his brother's arms. Bill began to mumble over him.
"He isn't dead, Bill; he's just fainted," said Herbert. "We must get him back, Joe, somehow, to a hospital. But there are no ambulances following us this closely. And we must go on, whatever happens; those are our orders."
"Corporal, let me take him back!" Bill Neely made the request pleadingly. "I'll get him there somehow and then I'll come back and find you. I'll find you. I've gotto put some lead into them Huns to get square for Joe, if he dies! Will you, Corporal?"
"Go ahead, then, Bill. Slide that bolt and push that door open, Wood, and help get Joe down. Poor fellow! I hope he isn't badly hurt. Go straight for that bunch of pines, Bill, and you'll be pretty safe. If you come back bear off to the right a little from here and you'll find us pretty soon. So long, old man!"
Bill Neely with his brother humped over his shoulder, started back, as directed; the great armored car went on. Herbert told Wood to peep out back and watch Bill's progress, if he could, and the car progressed, as indicated by his orders. He had reached what he believed was a proper place, hardly two hundred yards from where they had stopped; he was ordering all out, the supplies unloaded and the driver to return, when Wood called to him:
"They're both gone! Wiped out! Shell! It hit right at Bill Neely's feet! I couldn't see anything but legs and arms and things."
"Killed?"
"Done for."
"Poor chaps! The only two boys in the family, too. Their poor old mother'll miss them."
"Know them, Pyle?"
"Sure; since we were kids. Just across the street."
"Well, men; it's terrible, as we all know, but we've got to hustle if we don't all want to suffer the same fate. Get out those trench tools, Appenzeller, and give me a pick! We've got to dig in quick!"
Lieutenant Whitcomb
The great push had served a big purpose; it was to be followed by others quickly. In this manner it was hoped to strike the most effective blows at the enemy, giving it little time to recover. It could not be expected, however, that the Germans would take the matter at all calmly; they must be met with two blows to their one.
The place that Herbert had chosen was a small natural depression of a few feet; a pile of stones and hastily filled sand bags helped this much until a trench, really a nearly square hole, had been dug. Then this was roofed over with some half-charred planks and boards brought from a nearby pig-sty which the Huns had tried to burn, but could not.
Herbert and Cartright succeeded in throwing some earth on the roof without being hit by shells and other gun fire that had begun to come their way and they were delighted to notice that an anti-aircraft gun, undoubtedlywell guarded, had been installed not a fourth of a mile back of them, insuring much safety from that quarter, at least.
When night fell half the squad went on guard outside; the others worked like beavers, and without food until the task was done, to successfully camouflage the shelter, using grass and weeds pulled up by the roots from the half frozen ground and placed upright on the roof. The entrance down earth steps was made through the dead-leaved branches of a large uprooted bush.
Meanwhile, with Cartright as his most skilled assistant, Herbert was placing the fifty pounds of explosives in a large niche cut in the side of the pit and guarded by stakes, from which spot, under cover of darkness, a wire was laid for fully four hundred yards and the battery that was to set the charge off was buried in the ground and the spot marked.
The Germans did not seem at first to pay much attention to the pit until the final act of camouflage. A messenger, at night, sneaked to the pit and informed Corporal Whitcomb that it was deemed advisable to take this step now, as from airplane observations the previous day the Huns were getting ready to make a heavy counter-attack.
At once, therefore, a flexible steel flag-staff was firmly planted beside the pit and from it, with the first streaks of the coming day, the enemy viewed a division staff headquarters flag and a signal station flag flying in the sharp breeze. Then the shells flew, but the flags also kept right on flying. The steel staff was struck and shaken again and again, but its tough flexibility saved it; the flags showed many a hole, but still they fluttered proudly and the Boches went mad.
Snipers tried to down the banners and incidentally pick off a few of the supposed officers and observers that must grace such a spot, but the squad of American experts with the rifle was more than ready for them and they quit that game both through the day and the night following. Perhaps because of this or the night-long bright moonlight, no raid was attempted; perhaps it was because a bigger move was in process of formation.
And on the next day the enemy launched a mighty counter-thrust to regain lost ground.
A barrage fire was laid down and it continued for a full hour. Private Wood took it upon himself to make some observations as to how the flags and staff were bearing this and he got too far above the shelter withhis head. There are those who will do, against all sane judgment, most foolish, unnecessary things, and Wood was one such.
Sad, indeed, was every member of the squad as all stood about with uncovered heads and placed poor, uncoffined Henry Wood into a hastily dug grave in the bottom of the pit, Finley, a minister's son, stumbling, half bashfully, over a short prayer.
Suddenly the barrage fire was lifted and over a wide front the Huns were coming.
"Get out, fellows, and back, or they'll catch us! We can outrun the best of them, but do it! Stick together, if possible, but all report later to Captain Leighton! Cartright and I are going to wait for the Huns and set off the mine."
The men all filed out through the birch branches and retreated straight back toward a certain spot, each waving a small American flag, as per agreement with the men in that section of the trench. But Appenzeller and Finley protested. The former uttered nothing less than a command.
"Corporal, let's stand and soak it to 'em for a little! We can reach 'em from this rise nicely as they come over the hill, and I'm good for about a dozen. Finley is, too. We all are!"
Of course, in its sporting sense, this sort of thing appealed to Herbert and, moreover, he must have regarded it as a duty. A little good shooting would undoubtedly account for a good many of the Boches. But he and Cartright could not join in, as they had a more important duty to perform. But the others might do as they pleased.
"You fellows that want to, try it on them," he said. "We will have to leave you. But don't get caught or headed off! Go to it!"
Herbert and Cartright ran to the wire end. The corporal stood with the battery in his hand, watching through his field glasses the doings of the enemy. The Huns could not pass what they believed was a headquarters and signal station without, at least, an investigation. They swarmed toward the flag and pit from their advancing lines, no doubt believing they were to receive a warm reception and intent upon taking important prisoners.
The young American corporal was conscious of a greater degree of excitement than he had ever experienced before and with it there was uppermost that gentle humanity that makes a better man, even of a soldier.
"They're rushing up, Cartright! Andthey're a little puzzled, perhaps. They think they're going to get the very devil presently and they're preparing for a rush. It will be awful, old man! Say, how do you feel about it?"
"I'd like to blow the whole bunch up so high that they'd stick fast up there; clean beyond our attraction of gravitation! And I'd like to see the Kaiser and old Hindenburg in the bunch!" growled Cartright.
"Well, say, then, you take this battery and spring it! I guess I'm chicken-hearted. It seems like murder, but of course it's war."
"You bet I'll spring it! Give the word; that's all! Say, what's going on over yonder? For Heaven's sake, Corp; look there!" Cartright almost shrieked the last word.
And Herbert, for a moment forgetting his first duty, gazed where the other's hand indicated.
The four had been putting in their best licks, as it were. No doubt but that they had reduced the number of approaching Germans, four hundred yards, nearly a quarter of a mile distant, and their guns must have been hot. But sweeping forward on the other side of a rise of ground, a place also hidden somewhat by hedges and battle-ruinedbuildings, a large body of the enemy came suddenly almost between the four and any chance they had to retreat in that direction.
That also offered the only chance the boys had to withdraw in safety, for almost at the same instant a rapid-fire gun had discovered them; and to try to get away over the clear ground directly behind them would have proved certain death. And so, stooping and looking back, they made straight for the hedge and saw the unintended trap too late. In a moment Hun soldiers, detached at a command and running forward on either side, had surrounded them. There was nothing to do but surrender.
With a groan Herbert turned back to the important business in hand. There were now no scruples in his heart as to performing any acts of war. The whole business is merely one of retaliation, anyway, from first to last.
"There they are, a whole company or more, right on the spot! And some are down in the pit! Spring it, old man; push it! Ah! It worked! Poor devils! They could not have expected that. Come, we've got to beat it!"
The retreat of the two was largely madeunder the cover of a little natural valley, somewhat thicketed. In only one place were they exposed: while crossing a narrow bit of open field. They were hardly half way across it, Cartright, also an athlete, running just behind Herbert, when the corporal heard again that well-known sound that a bullet makes in striking a yielding substance, in tearing through flesh. A little moan followed it.
Herbert stopped and turned. "Hit, old man? Where?"
"Go on, Corp! Get out of this, or they'll get you, too!"
"And leave you? Not for all the Boches. Arms all right; are they? Get 'em around my neck and hold on! Honk, honk!"
It was a long, hard struggle. The wounded man, the last private of Herbert's second squad, was a heavy fellow. Herb was still unhurt, and he managed, though sometimes seeing black, to get into cover again, and there he could go more slowly, though he dared not stop. It seemed like hours, perhaps, instead of minutes, and the torture of struggling on and on with a weight greater than his own upon his back appeared a thousand times worse than anything of endurance thathe had ever known on gridiron or long distance runs. Still he kept right on going, with ever the thought of the avenging Huns behind.